#is interstellar more accurate | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mangoisms · 9 months

Text

circle k (back to you)

summary: in which you're just the graveyard shift employee at circle k bombarded by vigilantes.

━ chapter five: i am found on the ground | read chapter four

━ pairing: tim drake x f!reader

━ word count: 4.5k

━ warnings: none

━ masterlist

━ a/n: if you'd like to see my notes (and my thoughts behind a certain inclusion of a character in this chapter), you can find them here <3 (also i'm on fire is playing in the last scene the formatting of the lyrics just killed me so i had to get rid of it thank you all)

“You just can’t beat it.”

“It was okay.”

You turn sharply to look at Tim, who shrugs, a small smile playing on his lips.

In the kitchen, Steph snorts. “Here we go.”

You ignore her. “Okay? Inception was okay—”

“Uncalled for—”

“But true. This?” You gesture to his flatscreen TV, where the end credits for Interstellar are playing; you’re a little bit red-eyed from the end scenes with Cooper and Murph but no less passionate. “This is more than okay. It’s—”

“Not technically scientifically accurate.”

You grab a pillow and gently whack him with it. He tries to hide a growing smile. You don’t understand what exactly he’s smiling at but you don’t care in this moment.

“It’s not about scientific accuracy, duck boy, it’s about love.”

“Yeah!” Steph yells from the kitchen. “Go love! Woo!”

You gesture in her direction. “He literally said it in the movie, Tim. How can you miss it? And Brand, too!”

“It wasn’t enough to save who she loved, though,” he points out—ever the devil’s advoactate, honestly…

“But it was there and she knew that, too, and she was okay with it. And it was enough for Cooper and Murph, too. I mean, literally to the point that she was able to save humanity. Right? Brand said it—love is the one thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.”

Tim looks… well, far from upset or annoyed. He seems amused, almost… almost fond, the way he looks at you, but it’s too much for you to handle, so you look away, pouting a little.

“And also, okay, I know entering the black hole wasn’t ‘scientifically accurate’ but that’s the point, that some higher being switched them out so he didn’t die. You do have to admit, however, that the depiction of the black hole, which I’ll give Nolan props for, was great.”

“Okay, true,” he concedes. “The score was pretty good, too.”

“It was excellent.”

Steph steps out from the kitchen, looking at her phone. “Give me a sec, you guys, my mom’s calling me.”

You both give her an affirmative and she steps out the front door. You and Tim quickly resume your discussion.

“Inception’s score was good, too,” he points out.

“Bah. They both had Zimmer. Of course it’s going to be good. But Interstellar has the benefit of being enhanced by it because it’s already a good movie. I mean, it surprises even me that Nolan could manage to pull off something like this.”

“He has the range,” Tim protests.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you Nolan stan. I’m still a bit hung-up on you saying it’s just ‘okay.’ I mean, sure, it could just be me projecting my own grief about my dead parents onto the story about a dad crossing space and time to get back to his daughter but still!”

That’s the understatement of the century. The scenes between Cooper and an old Murph never fail to make you tear up. Any of the scenes between them, really.

The prolonged silence from Tim tips you off and it’s only when you look at him do you realize your mistake.

His eyes are wide as he looks at you, surprised, with something else.

“Oh, it’s fine—”

“Your parents are—”

You both stop.

You clear your throat, waving a hand. “It’s fine. I… I mean, sorry if it made you uncomfortable, I joke about it sometimes.”

“No,” he says. “It’s okay. It just surprised me. I guess… I don’t want to—I mean—I’m, uh, sorry?”

You shift on the couch, turning more toward him. “It’s okay. It was… well, not that long ago, but—”

You stop, because your instinctive response is ‘I’m over it’ but that’s not totally true, is it? You don’t think you’ll ever be over it. One part of you still feels horribly robbed of them, and some days, their deaths feel so monumental you can barely get through the day, while others, you can function normally for the most part.

“No, I understand,” he says softly. “My parents, too. My mom when I was younger but my dad died when I was sixteen. It’s… not really something you get over, I think. No matter how much time passes.”

A quiet moment between you. It’s not like he’s tried to make you feel ostracized—if anything he’s gone out of his way to make you feel welcomed here, to make sure he and Steph don’t get too caught up on their own and they include you—but… This is a common thread between you and you know he knows and you know he knows you know.

“Yeah… Yeah, exactly.” You pause, glancing at the TV, where the credits are rolling now. “It happened when I was fifteen. The, um, earthquake.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again and you know he means it.

“I’m sorry about yours, too.”

Tim nods, the look on his face still soft, still gentle, then he glances back at the TV.

“I was kidding, you know,” he says next. “It, uh, really was good. Better than I thought it would be. Scientific inaccuracy aside…”

“It’s good,” you press, ignoring the last comment. “And I don’t think it was trying to fool anyone into scientific accuracy.”

“Also true. I just…”

“Wasn’t expecting it to hit that hard?” you guess, smiling. “Yeah, I get it. Cried like a baby when I first saw it. You’re stronger than me for getting through it dry-eyed.”

“Oh, I’m just waiting for later,” he says. “Saving my sorrows for my pillow. That kind of thing.”

You laugh loudly. He smiles.

“It does unearth all the dead parent trauma, though,” he says.

“Oh, tell me about it. Cooper wanting to try to go back home after they find out Dr. Brand never intended to help those on earth…”

“And then having to sacrifice himself to give Brand a chance,” he finishes, shaking his head. “Only for it to turn out well in the end. If only real life was like that.”

A shade too dark for right now but you can’t say you disagree.

The front door opens. Steph slips back inside, raising an eyebrow at you two. Though she hardly means what you think she means, you find yourself inching away from Tim, turning back forward slightly. You’d hate to give her the wrong impression.

And of course, that is not at all what she is thinking about.

“Why do you two look like someone just died?”

“Well, we were just talking about our dead parents, so,” Tim responds without missing a beat.

You burst out laughing. Steph groans.

“I was wrong. You two shouldn’t be friends.”

“It’s too late for that, I think,” Tim says, grinning.

You can’t help but grin, too.

She groans again.

Catwoman is your next vigilante visitor.

All skin-tight latex and a coquettish attitude that makes your face hot.

Luckily, she doesn’t appear to mind. She even pays for her stuff.

(“I was told,” she purrs. “And I don’t much like being told what to do but… you’re cute enough to convince me to go along with it.”

You don’t think the noise you made was human but it amused her enough.)

Alongside that, you have the others who regularly drop by. Your vigilantes, but then, as you pick up a few weekend afternoon shifts (much to Steph’s disapproval), some normal faces, too.

Barbara, a red-haired woman with sharp green eyes who has a stately and intimidating aura to her but is always pleasant when you two chat. Sometimes she has another woman with her, a pretty blond Barbara calls D. Then, that one man, the stocky blonde with the tortoise-shell glasses and a quiet but kind disposition, who eventually introduces himself as Jean-Paul.

You spot him during one of your weekend shifts, waiting his turn as you finish ringing up a harried-looking lady. Another man joins him, a little bit younger, you think, with dark hair and an odd white streak at the front; they’re both dressed in scrubs.

“It’s been a while, Jason.”

“You know how it is, JP. Work doesn’t stop. How’s Leslie?”

“Doing everything at once and somehow managing to pull it off. I’m sure she’d like to see you, if you could find the time.”

“Sure. I’ve got a couple days off from the hospital. I could drop in. Lend a hand.”

A soft chuckle. “If she doesn’t turn you around and tell you to go rest.”

“I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

He coughs. The other man snickers.

Just as the lady leaves, Jean-Paul says, “Let me pay.”

“I won’t say no.”

They both step up to the counter. Jean-Paul gives you a small smile in greeting and seems to decide to forgo your usual small talk—probably because of his new company, which you’re a bit grateful for. The other man—Jason?—nods, eyeing you curiously. Why, you have no idea. But that’s the only thing odd about it. You ring up the coffees without issue and soon, they’re stepping out, Jean-Paul giving you another small smile in goodbye. You return it.

Having regulars like that reminds you of the ones you had in Keystone City. Kind Mr. Garrick, who stopped by about once a month for lottery tickets, his wife typically in tow; they were always kind to you, always a little bit concerned over your wellbeing, whether you were getting enough sleep or eating well. Painfully reminiscent of grandparents you never had.

A little more frequently, there was Linda Park-West, a face you easily recognized from WKEY-TV for the Channel 4 News. She didn’t miss much, always so perceptive, but kind to you, sometimes testing your PR skills as a reporter. She usually stopped by for coffee before work but on occasion, she brought along her kids, Jai and Iris, to let them pick out something for themselves, too. Quite literal balls of energy, they were a handful but always good-intentioned.

You miss them all a lot. More than you thought you would. The Flash, too. Especially these days. What you’d give to talk to him about all this stuff…

But you’ve managed on your own since your parents died. You can keep doing it.

The following week, Tuesday night, you get another new vigilante visitor.

This one?

Robin.

He is, admittedly, a figure you are considerably more scared of. It’s a bit… silly on your part, too, because he is a kid, you think, a teen at least, but, well, teens can be scary. This one certainly is. If only because of his close proximity to the one who scares the most. The one who you are happy not to have visited you thus far and Robin’s appearance… well, you don’t entirely know if it’s a good thing.

But it might be foolish to assume that Batman doesn’t know this is happening.

But then thinking of him knowing you exist makes you horribly anxious, so, you shelve the thought for now and try to focus on the situation.

Which is…

The three dogs in tow collapse in front of the door, panting, tongues lolled out, appearing to enjoy the air-conditioned bliss of the inside of the store. Robin stares at you, his face a blank mask.

“Water?”

“At the back. Far left.”

He nods and turns.

You wait there, uncertain, glancing at the dogs. They look worse for wear, fur dirty and matted, old scars healed over; the sight tugs at your heart, so you step around from the counter, heading to the coffee machine. The store doesn’t carry bowls but the extra-large soda cups are wide enough to work for now.

Robin appears near you, several big bottles of water held in hand. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you and the cups.

“Don’t have any bowls,” you admit. “So, I thought this might work.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Styrofoam. Wasteful. But it’ll do.”

“Yeah, Circle K isn’t breaking barriers in terms of eco-friendliness.”

He says nothing to that, just turns and heads for the dogs. You follow him, not that turned off. You’ve heard rumors about this particular Robin. He does a good job but can be… rough around the edges. Like Bat, like Robin, you guess.

Glancing at the cups, you get an idea, stopping to duck around the counter and grab a pair of scissors. You cup off the top half of each of them, Robin taking them as you go, until all three cups are cut, allowing for the dogs to have better reach.

You join him with the last one, filling it with cold water. Most of the dogs are so heat tired, they only lift their heads to drink, seemingly unable to stand.

You and Robin stay kneeled in front of them, filling the cups when necessary. You gently stroke the head of one nearest to you, smiling as his tail thumps against the tiles.

Robin says nothing else and neither do you. That’s how his time there goes, spent in silence, petting the dogs, letting them cool down and rest.

Eventually, he starts to leave, and you can’t help but ask, “What’s going to happen to them?”

He regards you for a moment and you get the unnerving feeling of being picked apart and analyzed. Still, you hold steady. It’s good practice, you try to tell yourself. One day, you’ll be faced with bloodhounds for journalists and you have to keep it together. Let yourself practice with Robin because if you can pull it off with him, you can do it with anyone.

“The shelters are closed for the night,” he eventually responds. “I will take them somewhere safe, off the streets. Then in the morning, they’ll go there.”

“That’s good. Thanks for doing that. It’s kind of you.”

He pauses, looking back at the dogs, who are rejuvenated by this point, stretching and standing up, tails wagging as they look at you two.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he says at last. “And… thank you, for your help.”

You glance away, picking up the cups. “Sure. No problem.”

A nod and Robin is soon corralling the dogs out of the store, murmuring more gently to them than you would expect, but from this experience, you suspect he has some kind of soft spot for animals. It’s endearing, in a way.

You hope you made a good impression on him, too.

(And if your good impression keeps Batman out a little longer, well, that’s just a lucky coincidence.)

The start of July creeps on you.

There is still achingly little contact between you and Tim. By this point, you haven’t seen him in person for more than a month.

You miss him, in the same way you miss a limb. Scrolling through your social media, whenever you find something funny or that he would like, your knee-jerk reaction is to send it to him. But your conversations on those respective platforms are made up of messages from you and none from him, so you have to stop yourself, because it wouldn’t be worth it. He wouldn’t see it.

Steph tries to preoccupy your time, though her behavior regarding Tim grows increasingly skittish, to the point where you almost think she might know.

She might know that you’re in love with him, him, her ex-boyfriend and first love. The thought brings on the usual amount of soul-crushing guilt and disgust with yourself. How can you do that to her? She’s your best friend. You love her to the ends of the universe and back and… How can you do that to her?

But… something else about it all niggles at you, too. She switches between reassuring you he’ll come around, and dismissing him the other times, saying you ‘don’t need him to have a good time.’ It makes you think they may be having their own issues, too.

The thought is sobering.

You’ve always thought of Steph and Tim as—as insane as it sounds—a pair of bonded kittens. Not exactly getting along all the time but…

You couldn’t separate them. You shouldn’t separate them.

And it feels so wrong for it to be just you two, sometimes. Like you’re missing another piece of the puzzle and it’s noticeable. This empty space between you two that he usually filled. Your group chat, at his insistence, is called the three musketeers. Well, you’re missing your third. Desperately.

“We can rebrand,” Steph says to you one day, the two of you at the mall’s food court. Tim said he was busy. Again.

“No,” you sigh. “That’s not… no. Anyway, Big Belly?”

“I—oh, you have got to be kidding me.” She sounds annoyed, voice sharp.

“What?” you ask, your eyes still on the menu in front of you.

She grabs your arm. “I think we should eat somewhere else.”

You frown at her. “But you said you wanted to get—”

“We can get Big Belly somewhere else. Maybe a little more quiet, you know, it’s kinda crazy in here,” she laughs, though it sounds strained as she tugs you over to the exit.

“Crazy? It’s not that busy—Stephanie!” You yelp as she drags you forward before you can take a look around. “What is going on—”

“It’s just—I think I see Jordanna—”

“Where—”

“Let’s not look! Don’t want her to see you or me, you know how she is, so, let’s get out of here…”

“Well, I—okay—you don’t have to—”

She tugs you all the way through the exit, out into the burning mid-afternoon heat. Humidity swallows you whole, turning your skin tacky, sun bearing down on you full-force. Outside, it smells sharply of gasoline and hot blacktop.

“Honestly, Steph,” you say, shaking your head. “You didn’t need to drag me out like that.”

She gives you an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I just… didn’t want to deal with Jordanna. She’s been really annoying me recently.”

“Has she?” You can’t imagine why Jordanna would even be talking to her since it’s the summer, but to be fair, there isn’t much Jordanna wouldn’t do in the name of annoying her.

“Yup. Just… acting way out of line. So, let’s go somewhere else.”

“Alright, that’s fine. Let’s get out of the heat before you have to scrape me off the pavement.”

“Food’s on me,” she promises, looping her fingers through the belt loops of your jeans, tugging you gently; too hot to hold hands or twine your arms together like usual.

Though the whole thing bothers you a little bit, you are too used to Steph and Tim’s sometimes strange ways. Leaving abruptly, missing scheduled hangouts, a penchant for tardiness. The occasional bruise or cut that they both wave away. The exhaustion that wears them down sometimes.

It’s odd.

But stranger things happen in Gotham, so, you heed their wishes for that stuff to be ignored.

Just like you let this one go, too.

Really. The things you do for them.

Oddities aside, as Tim remains virtually radio silent, you miss him more. Think about him more.

Dream about him more.

“Steph’s going to be late,” is what Tim says as soon as he steps inside your dorm.

You snort. “Of course she is. You’re both terrible at being punctual.”

“I… am less bad at it than she is.”

“Right,” you say, smirking, pointing to your clock. “You’re only twenty minutes late, compared to what her forty minutes to an hour will be.”

Tim grimaces as he shuffles off his shoes by the door, then steps in further. “She said she was showering.”

“So, we have even more time. That’s fine. I wanted to paint my nails.”

In the bathroom you share with your ‘roommate,’ the shower turns on. It’s really just the bathroom you two share. Your small dorm is entirely private. The perks of being a junior.

You go over to your dresser, where your collection of makeup and nail polish is. Above it, your window looks out to the grassy quad, the sky clear of clouds, unusually blue today without the typical smog; the sun shines in, dust motes dancing in the rays.

Tim comes over, too, but he goes for your phone instead, which is connected to your Bluetooth speaker, music playing lowly; he got that for you this past Christmas.

“Gonna play your old people music?”

“Bruce Springsteen is a treasure to this country and, to quote my dad, one of the few good things to ever come out of the state of New Jersey.”

You laugh. The song changes. The upbeat notes of Hungry Heart start. You’ve heard this one more than a couple times since meeting him. It’s not so bad.

You fiddle with the bottles of nail polishes. Tim sets your phone down and leans over, dropping his chin to your shoulder as he watches you, humming quietly under his breath.

The contact makes your heart skip a beat, tendrils of his cologne wrapping around you, the heat of his body palpable through your thin t-shirt. It’s a contradicting sensation, with the AC working hard to beat the May heat that’s settled in. Maybe too hard, as your fingers are a little bit cold. You warm up quickly with Tim so close to you, your heart thudding in your ears. You desperately hope he can’t feel the heat that expands in your face.

That’s a more recent development. One you hate looking too closely at, for fear of what it means.

(You do know what it means. You’re just still in denial. Because admitting it means you have feelings for your best friend’s ex-boyfriend. For your best friend.)

You keep fiddling, not sure which color to pick. Tim huffs softly, reaching past you, picking out a bottle of wine red nail polish.

“Fine. But you have to help,” you say, taking it from him, then grabbing another bottle for the top coat.

“Don’t I always?”

You just nudge him back, stepping away from the dresser and taking a seat on the floor. The floor is hard, polished concrete; not pleasant to sit on or walk on, so you’ve invested in several cushioned rugs to cover as much as you can.

Tim grabs a Zesti from your mini fridge, then joins you as you set to painting the nails of your left hand. This one is easier since you’re using your dominant hand and you manage to paint your nails without catching any of the skin around them.

The shower in your bathroom hums underneath the sound of the song as you finish your left hand. The first coat, anyway. Tim passes his Zesti to you, wipes a hand on his jeans to get rid of the condensation, then takes the bottle of nail polish.

You sip the soda, extending your right hand to him. He carefully balances the bottle on the rug and sets to painting your nails.

Like with most things he does, Tim dedicates himself to his task wholeheartedly, cornflower blue eyes trained on your hand, tongue poking out in concentration. The sight makes your heart skip a beat. Warmth unspools in your chest like cotton candy.

Sunlight pours in from the window above the dresser, bathing him in warm, golden rays; it makes the shade of his dark hair warmer, the blue of his t-shirt, too, softening the pale of his skin.

“So… how was that date?”

The question jars you. You avert your eyes.

Ah. The date you agreed to go on with a guy in your communications class in an attempt to… you don’t know. Distract yourself from Tim? Try to find someone else to latch onto? All… not so great reasons, you know, but needs must.

Not like it worked out, anyway…

“Terrible.”

He stiffens, pausing in his work to look at you, eyes narrowing, and you send him a small smile, privately pleased—though you shouldn’t be—at seeing him get all protective. You can take care of yourself and he knows that, too, but… one can appreciate having a cute guy be like that for you. Within reason, anyway.

“He didn’t do anything, Timmy, relax. He was just… well, seemed nice initially. But when we got to the restaurant, he was horrible to the waitress. I already wasn’t feeling it, but after that, no way. So.”

He glances away, thumb rubbing idly at the back of your hand from where he cradles it in his. “Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t a good idea.”

“To go with him or—” he clears his throat, turning back to his work “—dating in general?”

“I don’t know. He just wasn’t what I was looking for.”

“What are you looking for?”

You, you want to say, but don’t.

Frightening to realize, really, that the answer to that question is immediate, as sure as the day.

It’s Tim.

Always Tim.

But you’ve never felt this way for someone. This strongly, like you want so much, you could never be satisfied.

“I don’t know,” you say quietly, watching the brush of the handle glide over your nail in easy, practiced sweeps. “Does anyone?”

“I guess not,” he concedes softly. “But still. I hope you can find it.”

The song changes. Something calmer, with the strum of the guitar. Familiar croons of I'm On Fire.

I have found it, you want to say. It’s you. It’s this. Right here, right now.

But just because you found it doesn’t mean it’s yours.

“Do you?” you find yourself asking because apparently you’re feeling extra masochistic today. “Know what you’re looking for, I mean.”

Steph sometimes teases him. Tries to point out nice boys and girls he might like. You used to play along. You don’t so much these days.

He would always wave it off, anyway. Just shake his head and change the subject. He has dated before. Obviously. Someone as gorgeous as him… all of Gotham wants a piece of him. You do, too. Well. You want all of him. Which is another thing you are just now realizing. But anyway, since you’ve known him, he hasn’t dated anyone. He used to date a boy—Bernard? Steph said he was a character—from one of his old high schools but that didn’t work out. And now he still has the occasional date, but it never pans out. He says they just aren’t compatible.

Makes you curious.

You’d never match up to it, you know, but you want to know, anyway.

Tim looks up, his eyes slowly scanning your face. This close, with the sunlight, you can see the shadows his lashes cast on his cheeks, the flecks of silver in his eyes, like mercury, the odd scars, too, that he excuses behind clumsiness as a child. Everything inside you squeezes.

“I guess you can say that,” he eventually says, voice soft.

The words hurt, but distantly, like it’s all far away from you. You’re too caught up here, now, close enough to smell his cologne.

Tension thickens the air between you. It’s unfamiliar, unknown, but not unwelcome with how your stomach swoops like you missed a step, heart pounding in your ears.

Tim looks… contemplative. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the movement of him biting his lip, teeth sinking into plush pink, and the urge to soothe away the indents with your own lips is fearsome, monumental, like a hurricane.

His fingers tighten on your hand. You want to get swept away in this moment, no matter the consequences. It’s a dangerous kind of feeling you aren’t used to.

But the shower abruptly shuts off in the bathroom, plunging the room back into silence with the strum of the guitar and the croon of the song as it ends. The moment is broken.

Tim clears his throat and returns to his work.

Neither of you say anything.

Too much for you to want.

Too much you cannot have.

Too complicated.

reblogs are appreciated!

taglist: @peachesona @knoxx-seresinbradshaw @kikis-writing-service @sweetistic @soundsfunbutno @ginevraxrogers @fridaenpina @skcj24 @bath1lda @omfg-its-tay @laughydaphne @fhrjrirj @iamthesimpmother @alittlelateforstars @thaliadoesthings @scarlett13 @zelabee @coffee-love-alltheabove @benstormy @sad-girl09 @lockofspades @thereallchristine

[ask to be tagged! either here or my inbox! ^_^]

#tim drake x reader #red robin x reader #dc comics imagine #tim drake imagine #red robin imagine #batfam imagine #batfam x reader #tim drake x y/n #tim drake x you #red robin x you #red robin x y/n #batfam x you #batfam x y/n

253 notes · View notes

friezaglasiencold · 7 days

Note

Hi there, Frieza!!

I'm a researcher writing a book about the ins and outs of Icejin Culture. Seeing as you're one of the few left, I need your assistance.

What are some rarely known facts about your species? Customs? Taboos? Preferences?

Give as much information as you're comfortable with.

Thank you,

RR Interstellar Research Facilities

$73 Cicada Drive

XX217

Nosy, nosy. Hoho...

Fine, I'll bite. Do keep in mind that some of this was learned secondhand-- despite holding the throne I prefer to focus on the business side of things and don't spend much time on my planet of origin. As the prince of that sad lot, though, I'm obviously the most relevant person to ask. Forgive me if I ramble; I'll put it under a cut in post.

Now, let's see. 'Customs' could range anywhere from religion to breakfast preferences. I'll cover some of the ground in between, but I'm not going to type an essay for you. If you want more than what I give, send another message, and be more specific.

To begin with, the species has many names, as I've mentioned before. Here are some of the ones I've encountered in my travels:

Icejin (Most common.)

Arcosian (Scientifically accurate.)

Frost Demon (Fond of this one.)

Glaesar (Less common. Very formal usage.)

Polarite (Rarely used. Probably archaic.)

Suliform (I believe this is derived from 'Arcosulite', the unique mineral found in biogem shells.)

Changeling (Obvious origin.)

Culturally, the most prominent keystones are these--eloquence, formality, education, competition, and achievement. It's considered very rude to speak casually to someone with whom you are not close; you may think an individual is gibbering mad when he addresses you in riddles and tongues, but that's only because the general population is staggeringly naive. You must learn to read a room, and to never trust someone at first glance.

Or at first reading. Heh. I hope you've not been taking everything I say here at face value.

Children learn early on the importance of social hierarchy. Climbing it came naturally to me, but I've seen how the proletariat scrabble over each other with such thinly-veiled desperation. Resources are scarce on the home planet, after all; that is, I believe, why we became such competent spacefarers in the first place. Arcos is an inhospitable world. The few times I've visited it's been out of obligation to appeal to those remaining (mostly the elderly, infirm, or very young; nobody stays there long). I can't have them forgetting about their Prince, after all.

Ah, here's a fun fact--the point on Kuriza's head is a vestigial egg tooth. I only learned this after he was born; I'd no idea what the thing was for until I asked around. It's cute, isn't it? Evidently ovoviviparity only became the norm a couple of generations prior, and before that the egg would remain intact until a few hours afterward...

Hm. Let me think of more. I'll only bother with the interesting ones.

-Makeup denotes status. A nobleperson appearing without a full face of makeup in public is grounds for a legitimate scandal.

-It's possible to approximate a person's power level by their biogem color. The closer to violet, the stronger they are. Something, something, life energy -> radiation -> light frequency, something, something. It's also possible for gem color to change over time... infants and toddlers typically have duller, redder colors. Yours truly was the first person in recorded history to be born with purple gems. ;)

-Being relatively long-lived as we are, our written histories are frustratingly sparse. My father amassed quite a collection, though.

I could go on, but I have other things to do. That should satisfy for now.

Ah, but here’s one more for the road…

Something many people assume is that I'm entirely nude in my final form--untrue. There’s a thin layer of protective, flexible armor over the skin of important nerve clusters; the area you've all been so doggedly curious about parts during intimacy. I hope that clears things up. Now stop asking.

#text response #long response #lore dump...#((my gf came up with the light frequency thing and i thought it was super neat so i included it!! thanks babe))

29 notes · View notes

daisychainsandbowties · 11 months

Note

I just want a factually accurate, incredibly detailed Palmer station in winter in Antarctica fic where Lilith and Beatrice are no nonsense researchers and Camila and Ava and all nonsense maintenance/mechanics people with incredibly well written smut for both ships to magically appear out of thin air. C’mon, universe, help me out…

okay okay okay okay but listen beatrice is there to study heliophysics for nasa. she’s as usual a fucking science nerd supreme & if you ask her about the heliopause or voyager 1 well i hope you brought snacks because she’s not remotely normal about solar wind fizzling out against interstellar wind & the small influence (cosmologically) of the brightest thing we know.

ava is the station mechanic & also a pilot & a professional alpinist. big fan of penguins. her & bea meet when Ava slides off the roof of the bio-building & ends up dangling upside-down in her harness waving to a flummoxed bea through the window.

lilith is a marine biologist and glaciologist & cam is part of her dive-team. they’re weird and soft and lilith is like a stork in a lab coat when cam is around (clumsy) but she’s also… constantly in a wet suit or in a lara croft-type fit because biologists are Like That so cam is playing it cool but like… wants to fuck this strange woman who gets emo over the melting ice caps.

help anon you’re testing my whisker-thin resolve to not start any more aus

#palmer station au #they have a little penguin colony there so ava’s gonna be 🥰#help don’t poke my childhood dream of working in a place like this #avatrice #camilith #(yes i see the well-written smut thing and i mean… of course)

94 notes · View notes

elbiotipo · 2 months

Text

I'm doing some political fixing to my Campoestela setting...

The main thing that was bothering me is how humans fit. Since this is a setting with multiple sentient species, each with their own civilizations and cultures (because I dislike the recent trend of human-only sci-fi setting, it's an intentional retro throw). However, the main thing here that allows such a diverse setting is the presence of diplomats/traders (because no universal translator!) and standarized equipment. Where did the latter come from, though? If there are older space civilizations than humanity, it must be humans who adapt to that standard, and I'm not nearly creative enough to build an entire alien technology set. If it was humans who "created" space civilization, it would mean they're way too important in the setting and I want humans just to be one civilization out of many.

My solution is that there would be a mix of both; humans have their own set of technology but they have adopted some alien tech and customs. This also throws me back to the early history of this setting. My idea is that humanity spread on its own on the Solar System, developing some standard space technology (perhaps there are equivalents of the Soyuz running around) before they invented FTL and added other alien standards to their own technological base. So human spaceships are similar and quite compatible, but they are very different to other civilizations. FTL is a whole discussion on itself, how did things come from big slow generation ships to aircraft-sized spaceships? I'll deal with that later.

Another thing I was never happy with was with the "Confederación Esteloplatense" thing, it's an ugly name (ironically it sounds better in English, Silverstar Confederation). OF COURSE there is a Space Argentina, and more accurately they are the descendants of the generation ship Esperanza, which had a mostly Argentine crew. But I've decided that, at least loosely, Argentina is part of a larger whole that includes the whole of South America or Latin America. I'm going to call it the Cruzur Union, the Union of the Southern Cross (Cruz del Sur). Rioplatenses, or Esteloplatenses, are just one nation inside of this wider... nation.

To see it from a wider perspective now, I'm picturing humanity in Campoestela much like the Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians (the Poleis model), establishing trading posts, colonies, communities and such all over space, but these are mostly independent from each other and only organized in very loose trade leagues and cultural alliances, with exceptions, there are few truly interstellar states beyond that. This is the Poleis model I made in my Space Empires post.

Ancient Greeks poleis were sorted by dialect and cultures (Doric, Aeolic, Attican, Ionic, real stuff) and their mother cities (the metropolis. And so, the human communities, all very independent and belonging to many overlapping organizations and alliances are also loosely grouped by their origins back on Earth. I'm imagining there were a couple wars and conflicts between the Western Powers (US/Europe) and the Eastern Powers (Russia/China), with other blocs such as the Cruzur, the African Union, the Arab League, India and more eventually overtaking the two. This is in the far past by now, it's like talking about the Habsburgs in the context of the modern European Union.

So, in this context, Beto, our loveable Argentine space trucker, is from the Esperanza Federation (name pending), a loose interstellar trade alliance of the descendants of generation ship of the same name. However, this alliance itself is part of the Cruzur, the old goverment of South America which still has a deep cultural and political influence. And Beto himself considers himself Rioplatense or Argentine, depending on the context. Oh, and he is part of a spacer syndicate that might or might not be international too. And of course he does belong to a wider human civilization or cultural sphere. If this is all complicated, it's because it's supposed to be, this setting is a bit of a reaction against single-culture, single-empire civilizations in space opera.

Why am I not making it the URSAL? Because this is a retro setting in the style of space opera. In real life sooner or later, we're gonna become all Star Trek communists (this is not a joke)

It's funny that this is all just background for a space trucker and a gamer girl having silly adventures.

#cosas mias #campoestela #I'll have to look a bit more on ancient mediterrean poleis and trade to see how I can make this work

14 notes · View notes

dragongock · 2 months

Text

AN EXPLORATION OF SCALE

P1: The planet Yiphra and its moons. This is at a scale measurable in thousands of kilometers, commonly the "planetary scale".

P2: The Hevvro System, including the central sun and its four major planets. This scale is measurable in millions of kilometers, commonly the "solar scale".

P3: The "local clump" of stars, including Hevvro itself. This scale is measurable in light years, commonly the "interstellar scale". Distances and measurements do not change on a timescale that matters, but the added third dimension (compared to an ecliptic of a solar system) makes mapping somewhat more interesting.

P4: The local galactic arm, the Khapatt Arm. This scale is measurable in hundreds to thousands of light years, commonly the "lesser galactic scale". Individual bodies are hard to discern on such a scale, and galactic physics may be unpredictable due to unforeseen events.

P5: The Miirtetz Galaxy, including its innermost satellite, Nuunt. Measurable on the scale of tens to hundreds of thousands of light years, or the "galactic scale", it is nigh-impossible to chart a galaxy accurately.

P6: The Maathurtas Cluster, including Miirtetz and Salvared, plus multiple other small galaxies. Measurable in millions of light years (the "intergalactic scale"), positions are easier to chart between galaxies than within them.

P7: The local universe, including the Ashabas Convergence and its tendrils. Measured in billions of light years (the "supergalactic scale"), and impossible to predict.

P8: The "greater" local universe, measured in trillions of light years (the "universal scale"). Stelliferous superregions indicate "young"/"refreshed" areas, while "degenerate" areas are ridden with iron stars and black dwarves, awaiting a rebirth. Early stelliferous superregions have very recently (on a cosmic scale) been "born" or refreshed with matter.

15 notes · View notes

thewertsearch · 1 year

Text

An auspistice can stabilize particularly turbulent relationships. If the auspistice fails to mediate properly, or has no interest in the role, or perhaps has different romantic intentions him/herself altogether, then the relationship often quickly deteriorates into one of an especially hostile and torrid nature.

Kanaya's into Vriska, both as a matesprit and an auspistice - but you're supposed to pick just one. If you don't, conflicts of interest are inevitable.

Kanaya made a dress for her crush, and it ended up facilitating the very kismesissitude she was mediating against.

Forget about that, though. Let's talk about this hot mess.

Tavros Nitram, I am talking directly to you now. If you have any romantic feelings for Vriska, please love yourself, and don't give them the time of day.

Nepeta and Equius. These two have a bizarre relationship, and I guess we're finally getting into it.

Trolls are a very angry and violent race. Some are more hot-tempered and dangerous than others, to the extent that if left to their own devices, they would present a serious threat to society, or even to themselves. Such trolls will have an instinctive pale attraction to a more even-tempered troll, who may become their MOIRAIL.

This clearly applies to Equius and CA - but let's take a closer look at Vriska, arguably the most dangerous troll of all.

She claims not to appreciate Kanaya's meddling, but since she immediately dares her to meddle more, I think she's actually the pale equivalent of a tsundere.

Vriska's pale attraction is there - but she doesn't accept it, because she doesn't want to need anyone.

The moirail is obliged to pacify the other, to function as the better half. The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

A violent troll seeks out a more relaxed peer, and that peer is obliged to pacify them. It's similar to auspisticism, but you're pacifying one troll instead of two. Plus, since this is red romance, it's a troll you actually like.

It also sounds like both parties in the moirallegiance are supposed to emotionally support each other. I assume the hot-tempered troll would teach confidence and self-assurance, while the pacifier would teach patience and restraint.

I understand why this quadrant exists. It's another way for trolls to ensure emotional stability, in lieu of supportive parents - at least to the degree that they don't all murder each other before the interstellar draft.

It seems like it's really hard to stop these guys from killing each other, and a lot of troll culture is designed to keep them pacified. I wonder how they survived in the pre-civilization days?

Now that we know what a moirallegiance is, we can see that it doesn't match Nepeta and Equius at all.

Nepeta's relationship with Equius seems to be based on fear, rather than love - and if she's trying to avoid 'kerfuffles' with him, it doesn't seem like she's succeeded in quelling his violent impulses.

I guess it's always possible that Equius is pacifying the rather violent Nepeta, rather than the other way round. That would explain why he takes issue with her profanity - he's trying to keep her calm.

Still, while Nepeta is violent, it doesn't seem like she's a danger to herself, or anyone else - she's living, quietly and self-sufficiently, in a cave. Plus, Equius doesn't fit the emotional profile of an 'even-tempered' pacifier, and it doesn't explain why Nepeta is in a redrom with someone she's afraid of. I'm stumped.

Furthermore, romantic intentions of a more flushed nature can often be mistaken for paler leanings, much to the frustration of the suitor.

Oh, yeah - this would happen constantly. No teenager is going to communicate any of this accurately, even to themselves.

It's hard, being a troll and growing up. It's hard - but I'm trying to understand.

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5 #s37 #2400

149 notes · View notes

torchship-rpg · 1 year

Text

Dev Diary 1 - What is Torchship?

Hello everyone! I’m Erika Chappell, @open-sketchbook on tumblr, and I’m the game designer for Torchship, the space exploration tabletop roleplaying game. I’ve been working on this game, in some form or another, since 2016, and it’s incredibly exciting to be approaching a form with it that we can show off to other people.

Showing off is the point of these dev diaries; we’ve done an enormous amount of work behind the scenes over the past year, and while not all of it is ready for primetime and not everything fits together properly yet, there’s a huge amount of game and world and I’m tired of waiting to show it off. These dev diaries will be a way of showing off what we’ve done, share what we’re working on, and get excited about what’s to come.

What is Torchship?

As this is the first diary, I should probably talk about what the game actually is, right?

Torchship is a tabletop roleplaying game about exploring a vast and complex future galaxy of mysteries and danger. It is a traditional structured game with a GM and multiple players, who take the role of the foremost crew members of a rocket ship in uncharted space. It runs on a custom d6 system, designed around a set of solid core mechanics which expand into in-depth subsystems for whatever part of the game interests you.

It is, in many ways, a very retro sort of RPG. It’s deliberately aiming to be maximalist, not minimalist, with extensive and interlinking systems available for whatever possibilities your stories run into and mechanics everywhere you look to sink your teeth into. Each individual mechanic is simple and the game is designed so that you only deal with small subsets at a time in places where it’s appropriate, metering out the complexity similar to how the Routine in Flying Circus cut down on the number of moves in play at any one time.

You play as members of Star Patrol, a multifaceted agency of the Interstellar Union of Republics, or Star Union for short. The IUR is a very new and relatively small alliance thrust to the status of a superpower by the collapse of the local empire. It is ringed on all sides by potentially or actively hostile states, not to mention the looming threat of godlike powers and ancient civilizations that truly rule local space.

Star Patrol are equal parts explorers, diplomats, prospectors, spies, and watchmen, tasked with the impossible task of charting millions of unexplored or long-lost stars for resources, allies, and advantages as the borders close in and the power vacuum closes. Funding is tight and resources scarce; you’ll be the only ship for dozens of light years, but if you’re successful, if you can light the way, the future might be bright after all.

FTL Drives & Radiators

While Torchship’s inspiration is obvious, it might be more accurate to say that it is informed by Star Trek. It is not an attempt to make A Trek Game that directly emulates the feel of an episode; it instead aims to explore, reimagine, critique, and deconstruct its inspiration while injecting new ideas from outside.

One of the main ways it differs is by lingering on logistical concerns which are usually handwaved away and emphasising that you are space explorers, people out in the vast expanse, clinging to fragile bubbles of oxygen and water. Our mission statement for tone is Star Trek with Radiators; shiny space ships with all the retro trappings combined with the enormous glowing heat management systems.

This is deeper than just an aesthetic. Torchship is not hard science fiction, but there is nothing stopping you from putting realistic reaction engines and impossible teleporters side by side, nor from treating that teleporter as a complex machine that still obeys some kind of laws.

Or, in other words, the ship can go faster than the speed of light, but it still needs to do something with the waste heat it generates.

This principle manifests in dangers: Decompression, high-g forces, and radiation are huge threats, heat builds up, vacuum sucks. Instead of the consoles exploding, projectiles zip through the hull and lasers chew through vital parts. But… it’s going to be okay, because you still have impossible energy shields and amazing medicine and tools to repair any damage.

It is also present in the politics and logistics focus of the game. Torchship is a game about scarcity; you have to carry all the resources you need with you, and there are no magic replicators. Somebody, somewhere, labours for everything you use. This system connects to the political aspect; all your choices will be reflected onto the Star Union as a whole, and will shape who they become over time.

Development

Right now, Torchship is in an alpha state. It is still actively being written and rewritten with an eye toward playtesting and public betas. We are filling out the website (which will act as a big setting encyclopedia) and assembling 3d assets for creating artwork.

Torchship is an independent production and it’s being developed by a very small team. Despite that, we’re going to make the best damn space game there ever was.

#torchship #rpg #ttrpg #dev diary

230 notes · View notes

descenacre · 8 months

Text

Olimar's family in Echo

(Pasha is just a name that sounds like "Peach", since Olimar is like "Mario" Gage is taken loosely from Sagittarius[originally called Sagi, then Gagi], Liba is literally Libra without the r)

Their canon personalities are pretty basic, but in Echo I'm imagining the kids both as massive nerds in their own little worlds-- Gage as someone super into exploration and mapmaking, Liba as someone who wants to be a weather forecaster

(The kids are a bit older than their original Pikmin 1, Liba is a young teenager, Gage is a young adult) Pasha is upset because her kids are growing up-- Gage wants to go travel the undiscovered world, while Liba is so enamored by her role models in the TV that Pasha feels ignored-- now, with Olimar missing, what is she to do!

The Sagittarius and Libra are star charts, maps of interstellar space, that Olimar named after his children's star signs: "I will never feel lost, when I have you two."

When you find these ship parts, you don't get their effects the same way as other parts-- they're automatically integrated without needing to take an entire day, thanks to them being so light, But the ship parts themselves don't directly give you any benefit for being integrated unlike the others. Instead, at the end of the day after collecting one of them, Olimar reminisces about his children in his Voyage Log, and the memories he had with them.

With Gage, he remembers the time they were both exploring the woods, until they got lost, and couldn't find their way home! Gage grabbed a paper and compass out of his backpack, and started to make a map of what he saw-- and as they traveled through the woods, adding more and more to the map, they finally found the edge, and made it back out into the sunlight!

After thinking about this, Olimar suddenly remembers that his radar map has a notation marker function, and decides to use what he learned from his son to draw more detailed maps of areas that the radar could not accurately chart Simply open the map in the field at any time, and your immediate visible surroundings will be drawn into the world map. Although it's a little more tedious than the radar, which can only output vague outlines of sea and landforms, it's definitely a useful tool if you want an accurate lay of the land you've already visited!

With Liba, he remembers the time they went out into the field for a picnic, gazing at the clouds in the sky. As Liba described the different types and properties of the clouds in the sky, It was so warm and cozy, that Olimar decided to take a nap... Until he was awoken by her yelling: "It's a warm front! Look at the size of those clouds! We should get out of here!" Olimar didn't immediately understand what she was talking about, but they quickly made it away to safety, moments before a terrifying freak thunder storm attacked the field!

Olimar thinks about the many peculiar ways his little girl could predict the future... and using what she told him, can now accurately predict incoming storms, an additional day out, using the knowledge she gave him.

Olimar's hope that he will one day reunite with his beloved family is the one driving force that keeps Olimar pushing through to the very end.

#pikmin echo #fan pikmin #pikmin #ship parts

40 notes · View notes

egg-emperor · 4 months

Text

Ego City has made me so insane I can't stop thinking about it ahsigjsbfkdjsjgs

The giant gold Eggman statues that are once again made accurately to his real appearance because he knows he's handsome, in a beautiful new pose of him standing tall with his arms wide open proudly!!! The way his logo in gold is plastered on all structures and tiles!!! The Eggman speakers that his beautiful voice plays over constantly and talks proudly about having the greatest city in the world and enforces his rule and announces himself to be the employee of the month!!! You literally can't look away from him with his visage slapped on everything and you have to listen to him over and over, he's everything and everywhere I FUCKING LOVE IT

I'm such a sucker for every example of what Eggman would do with the world if he ruled like CD bad future, Eggmanland, and Interstellar Amusement Park, I'm so happy there's something new and great up there with them with Ego City! And I love how in this case it was all happening in his dream world because it shows just how true and deep this desire to rule all in a delightfully twisted and self important, self serving, self centered way. His ambition is for his own self fullfillment and satisfaction and nobody else's. Even in his dreams it's all about him and his creations, the whole game with all the other stages show that too

This game with its overall concept and Eggman's portrayal was for meee it gave me literally everything I want and love so much about game Eggman and I couldn't stop beaming while playing it lol 💜

I need to write more more mooore about an Eggman ruled world because my mind is racing with even more inspiration and excitement thanks to this 🥰

#dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #sonic dream team #my post

14 notes · View notes

a-small-batch-of-dragons · 1 year

Text

Part of Me

Ello! I wanted to slip this fic idea in, or maybe even headcanon, but C!Thomas taking care of his sides - a metaphor for taking care and being gentle with himself, because the sides are parts of him in a way - and bonding more with them. Thomas is very soft for these personified parts of himself. (The way his voice softens and he frowns, "Oh bud." and "I'm not gonna make fun of you, buddy.") In turn, the sides are more playful and interactive with their "host", sneak in a few cuddles and cat piles and movie nights because I vote Thomas should be able to hug his sides - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 1662

It takes work to learn to love all the different parts of you.

Thomas walks through the front door and sighs, taking off his coat and going to the couch. Patton's already there, his cat onesie pulled up over his head as he sips a hot mug of something.

"Hey, Patton," he says, sitting down too, "what're you drinking?"

"Oh, Roman showed me. It's warm milk with a little bit of vanilla syrup in it. Terrific stuff."

"Smells good."

"Mhm." Patton takes another sip. "Tastes delicious!"

Thomas watches him for a few more moments before sighing. "Are we gonna talk about what just happened?"

"Hm? What was that, kiddo?"

"What just happened," Thomas says patiently, "are we going to talk about it?"

"Oh, we don't have to! I think we're all clear on everything, no need to trouble yourself with it, Thomas."

"Patton," he says patiently, waiting for some of the forced glee to dissipate, "we should talk about it."

Patton's fingers twitch on the mug but he doesn't put it down yet. "I-if you want to, kiddo."

"I do." Thomas shifts, turning to face him a little more. "You know it's okay if they don't forgive him, right?"

"Of course I do! Forgiveness is earned, not bestowed, we don't need to go over that."

"But Patton, even if they never forgive him, that's okay too."

Patton turns to look at him. "It's—what're you talking about, kiddo? It's important to make amends. Especially if you do something wrong."

"Yes," he says patiently, "but that doesn't mean they have to forgive him. That's for them, not for him."

Patton takes a deep breath and sets down the mug. "I know that, Thomas, it's just...hard to remember sometimes."

Thomas chuckles. "Yeah, I know, buddy. You and me both."

They sit on the couch together for a second. The clock ticks. A car drives by outside.

"I don't like seeing them fight," comes Patton's voice, "I don't like it one bit."

"Me neither." Thomas looks over. "You want a hug?"

"…yeah."

***

"Okay, buddy," Thomas announces, striding into the empty classroom, "I'm ready."

Logan looks up from the front of the room and smiles, turning on the projector and standing. "Thomas. Right on time."

"Almost like I planned it."

"We…did plan this, Thomas, about two weeks ago."

"Turn of phrase, Logan." He sits and props his head on his hands. "Okay, so, the difference between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics?"

"Yes. Let's begin." He clicks a button and a grid appears on the screen. The vertical axis reads 'size,' the horizontal axis is labeled 'speed.' "Now, there are roughly four group of physics. The ones that we use most often are for large objects moving at relatively slow speeds."

"Slow relative to what?"

"The speed of light, denoted by variable 'c'."

"I see."

"Second—" Logan pauses and gives him a look for the pun— "is large things moving at fast speeds. Or, rather, speeds comparable to the speed of light. These are relativistic mechanics. Special relativity, general relativity, Einstein's more well-known contributions."

"Are these the ones they use in Interstellar?"

"Yes, actually. That movie is remarkably accurate when it comes to certain aspects of spacetime." Logan shakes his head. "Other things, however…"

"So what I'm gathering is that we shouldn't watch it next movie night?"

"No. No, we should not. You and I can watch it separately when you have eight hours of allotted time."

"Wait, hold on, there's no way it's that long."

"With how much I will want to explain it will be."

Thomas laughs and Logan cracks a smile, pointing to the next square.

"Now, quantum mechanics is the set of rules that applies to small things moving at relatively low speeds. These are what we would consider the majority of things in the universe, so quarks, leptons, et cetera."

"Wait, what's a quark?"

"Tiny pieces of matter, the ones that make up protons and neutrons and such."

"Wait, wait, there are things smaller than atoms? Smaller than those?"

"…perhaps we will need to extend this lesson."

Thomas just smiles as Logan begins to explain that yes, there are in fact very, very tiny things in the known universe. It's worth playing a little dumb if Logan can be this happy about explaining things.

***

"C'mon, buddy," he mumbles in Virgil's ear as he guides him to the couch, "you got one weighted blanket coming right up."

Virgil just clings stubbornly to his sleeve as Thomas drapes the blanket over him. He's pulled unceremoniously under it and between Virgil and the couch, struggling a little bit to breathe before resigning himself to his fate and hooking his chin over Virgil's shoulder.

"Can you see the door?"

"Yes. It's locked. Wait—did we lock it?"

"We always put the key in the bowl after we lock it. Can you see the key in the bowl?"

"Yes."

"Good. Can you see the window?"

"Yeah. We didn't draw the blinds. Anyone could see into the house. We should close them."

"Okay, let's go close them."

They get up—well, Thomas gets up and Virgil clings to him—and draw the blinds. Thomas shepherds them back to the couch and pulls Virgil almost into his lap.

"Where's the phone?"

"Your phone is in your pocket. Mine is upstairs."

"Good. You wanna try breathing with me?"

Virgil shifts and leans back against Thomas like an overgrown house cat. "Nah. 'M all good now. Just…needed to do that."

"No problem, bud. I'm right here."

"Mm."

"Uh…are you gonna get off my lap?"

"Nope."

"…at least put on something."

"There's a new blooper reel out."

"Sounds good."

***

"Shut the goddamn door."

Thomas quickly shuts the door and turns to the pile of blankets-and-snake on the bed. He sighs and walks over. "You cold, bud?"

The part of the blankets that is probably Janus's head glares at him. "No. I am doing this because I want to do this and not because I am being forced to by the elements."

"So you don't wanna cuddle?"

He doesn't even get time to process what's happening before he's being pulled under the blankets and very cold things are being pressed against his very warm and unsuspecting stomach.

"Yikes!"

"Shh," Janus hisses, "be quiet, space heater."

"You are freezing, bud, oh my god."

"I hadn't noticed. Now shush."

"Okay, can I just—" he moves one of the icicles Janus is calling hands to a different part of him— "okay. There."

"How are you so warm," comes the grumble, "'s not fair."

"You're cold-blooded."

"And we live in Florida. It should not be this cold."

"Shh, bud, it's okay." Thomas flails around a bit to find Janus's head and runs his fingers through his hair. "Just go ahead and steal all my body heat."

The snake hisses in contentment and a very cold nose presses itself to Thomas's neck. He hisses too and pulls him closer.

"Getting clingy, are we?"

"The sooner you warm up, the sooner there's not an ice cube on my neck."

"You're just lucky I've decided only two of my hands need to be warmed up right now."

That is a very good thing and Thomas is going to be quiet now.

***

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No, Remus, we can't just make everything in the living room green."

"But it would be fun!"

"For who?"

"Me, and that's all I care about right now because I'm bored!" Remus flops onto the couch and looks pleadingly up at Thomas. "Can we just paint it green? We can paint it back afterwards!"

"We don't have paint for all the colors of the things we'd need to paint, Remus."

"But we have lots of green paint!"

"But we don't have spare furniture."

"Sure we do!"

Thomas pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't have spare furniture."

"Oh."

"But hey, why don't you let us into the rage room and we can paint everything in there green?"

Thomas barely has a moment to breathe before he's in the rage room, in the white coveralls suit, and a can of green pray paint in his hands. Remus is already cackling and painting—okay, he's not gonna ask what that object is, he's not sure he wants the answer.

"C'mon, Thomathy!"

"Bet I can cover the wall faster than you can."

"Bet you can't!"

***

Roman sometimes comes to him in the evenings. He'll knock on the door and wait politely for Thomas to open it.

"Hey, bud," Thomas says softly, "you want a hug?"

"If you wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all. Come in."

Somewhere along the line, when Thomas figured out what it meant that Roman was his Ego, he found out that Roman just likes to be held. Not necessarily for anything, just to have someone put their arms around him and stay there. He'd asked if it was the pressure or the warmth or something specific, but Roman had just shrugged.

"It's nice. That's all."

"Okay. I can do that."

Roman, for all his size and stature when they're filming, actually feels smaller when he comes to Thomas for things like this. He fits snugly into a hug, tucking his head under Thomas's chin, breaths puffing over his shoulder.

And it is nice. Just to have this moment of quiet.

Just him and his Ego, trying to figure out how to be.

Together.

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #fic #roman sanders #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #janus sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders

59 notes · View notes

dr-veritas-ratio · 2 months

Note

Hello Dr. Ratio. So, I'm not entirely sure how accurate the numbers are, but according to what I've found online, your classes have a 3% passing rate? I'd like to know your thoughts on why that is.

- Sincerely, someone who is morbidly curious about the answer.

Hello to you too,

I commend your curiosity, even on such a mundane subject. Curiosity makes you want to learn more, and it's an important drive throughout your life.

The 3% passing rate is of utmost accuracy.

As for my own thoughts, I would know better than anyone about this baffling result, since it concerns the 52 courses I taught.

First of all, the 3% that successfully passed my classes didn't necessarily do so with excellent grades. They are people whose curiosity and perseverance naturally drove them to stay until the very end, and try to demonstrate their own smarts. As a result, most of them ended up being well-known researchers in their own subjects, thus pushing their curiosity even further - but I digress.

What you need to know next is that the courses I taught are very advanced subjects, and I expect from my students to have at least solid bases in a large array of related subjects in order to understand the materials I present.

I cannot make you learn about Imaginary Energy Entropy if you don't know the basics about Imaginary Energy, or the concepts behind it; or, for worse, if you don't have knowledge about Interstellar Subspace and its different properties. If you barely know about Space Physics, my lectures are clearly not for you.

Hence, I recommended a lot of my failing students to go back to a grade or two in order to consolidate their lack of knowledge. Some did so, some gave up and didn't.

The final point you should be aware of is that I am very strict when it comes to teaching, and that I despise troublemakers who disturb the class' due process. The rules are made pretty clear in the beginning of the course. If you can't follow them and hinder other students' learning process, I'll kick you out. That is all.

I hope that concise answer of mine somehow satiated your curiosity, and that you will keep cultivating such a curious-ladden gaze of yours.

~Dr Veritas Ratio.

#veritas ratio #dr ratio #hsr dr ratio #honkai star rail

7 notes · View notes

dailycharacteroption · 5 months

Text

Heavyweight Skirmisher Operative (Operative Alternate Class Feature)

(art by frozenbunn on DeviantArt)

It’s easy to assume that all operatives are catsuit-wearing sneaky types that specialize in agility, light weaponry, and stealth. However, if you’ve ever thought about a lot of elite teams, not everyone fits that mold, and being an agent of any sort of group is just as much having the training to leverage your talents, rather than fitting into any one neat and confined box.

Hailing from the Interstellar Species book and heavily associated with larger, more ungainly alien species like dragonkin, these heavyweight skirmishers learn how to leverage their strength and might, rather than raw agility, and favor bigger and stronger weaponry, but they retain the various specializations and skills that differentiate them from soldiers and other heavier hitters.

They might still be stealthy, but more akin to a sudden summer squall than a barely noticed breeze, or they might be one of the more social sorts of operative, leveraging their weight class as part of their intimidation factor, and so on.

Either way, these sneaks and agents are definitely a whole new breed than what you might be used to with this class.

At their core, these operatives rely on strength rather than agility, and this shows, for they favor larger and more powerful melee weapons, as well as heavier armors. They can use any weapon that is not too slow or too imprecise with their trick attacks, though the additional damage is increased at a much slower rate than other operatives. What’s more, the damage they deal on average is a bit better as they can reroll progressively more and more of their bonus damage dice.

They can choose to become proficient in heavy armors, and learn to overcome their sluggishness with practice.

Additionally, if they attack repeatedly with their weapon and hit both times, they can apply their trick attack as if they had made the skill check. What’s more, they become more accurate when attacking repeatedly than most, though they miss out on attacking thrice in a turn.

This option is great if you want the skills and tricks of the operative while being a bit more combat focused, sort of like a combat rogue variant of the normal operative. You miss out on multiple attacks per round and on evasion, but if you plan on standing on the front lines, whether it be with a big melee weapon or gun, this may be what you’re looking for.

Obviously this option was meant for bigger characters to give them a way to be an operative without feeling hampered by their bulk. That being said, I stand by what I said about different operatives achieving their goals based on their strengths and preferences, because the operative is very much about that, the application of skill and precision. It doesn’t matter what those skills specifically are. After all, part of the gimmick of the operative is finding ways to use skills in clever ways, such as adding different skills to the options for when you make trick attacks, and so on.

Composed of ex-cons, former mercenaries and others, VaxasCorp’s “problem-solver” team is kept in line not just by their paychecks but also various forms of blackmail that they have on all members. Take Slugger, the team’s heavy-hitter. The company keeps constant tabs on his daughter, ready to threaten her if he puts a toe out of line. He’d do anything if it meant getting her, and himself, out from under their thumb.

Though she is a mountain of a woman, Kova has always found she preferred to work with computers, though her raw strength comes in handy in rough company. Now that she’s out of the military, she seeks a new career that makes use of both of her skills.

Mostly mouth and infamous for their society of dominance over the weak, xaarbs are not thought of as a subtle people. Some, however, find there is much to learn from the complex ways of other peoples. Traditionalists call them sneaks and skulks, but they still show their xaarbish pride in the way they fight.

#starfinder #alternate class feature #operative #heavyweight skirmisher operative #human #dragonkin #xaarb #Interstellar species

10 notes · View notes

caxycreations · 10 months

Text

Not my usual content but I need to get this out

Looooong post, read at your own risk. Danny Phantom vs Goku, DP vs Ben 10, and DP vs....Sun Wukong. Analyzing powers/abilities and weaknesses, and considering battle methods and circumstances of combat.

Danny Phantom solos everything. I don't mean "everything but goku" or "everything but ben 10", I mean -everything-

I'm gonna go over the big 3 fictional beings of ungodly power and explain how Danny bulldozes them all. Starting with everyone's favorite anime badass: Goku.

But before we go over anyone else, let's cover Danny's powerset:

Hybrid Physiology (immune to ghost-specific things in human form, immune to human-specific things in ghost form, vulnerable to certain things in both forms)

Super strength (easily lifted a 12-ton school bus)

Super speed (circled the earth easily in a VERY short time)

Super durability (Sustained damage from a being of god-like power and kept fighting in ghost form. Human form is incredibly durable as well, but only a fraction as durable as ghost form)

Super agility (Can perform acrobatic feats beyond the skill of the most experienced professionals in ghost form)

Super reflexes (is able to dodge ectoplasm blasts from other ghosts with ease, and caught an arrow fired at him with his bare hands near-effortlessly)

Super stamina (can function at absolute peak capacity for hours before becoming tired)

Supernatural Equilibrium (it's impossible to throw him off-balance. Either due to his flight or his agility, his equilibrium is incapable of being off)

Flight (or more accurately, gravity has no effect on his ghost form, allowing him to move freely through space)

Super regeneration (has reformed his entire body from a puddle of goo, survived severe punctures and slashes, and in ghost form can survive even more serious damage such as being bisected or large punctures due to ectoplasmic biology)

Transformation (Can switch between ghost and human forms at will)

Intangibility (incapable of physical contact, phasing through any and all solid matter. He can spread this to anyone or anything he is making contact with, allowing him to manipulate other intangible objects)

Invisibility (Can become undetectable by any and all visual senses/sensors, including but not limited to eyes, cameras, bioscans, etc. He is still visible on infrared, however.)

Interstellar Travel (has been shown to move through outer space at CONSIDERABLY HIGH speed without any aid, meaning his ghost form does not require oxygen and can survive, and navigate with ease, in the vacuum of space without special equipment)

Ghost Rays (can be manipulated into any shape/form and fired as a projectile, beam, or wave. Can be fired from ANY part of his body, not just extremities. Has been shown to be hot enough to melt steel, and often explodes on contact, and are powerful enough to destroy Ghosts [which are by nature supernaturally difficult to destroy] molecule by molecule)

Ecto-Energy Manipulation (Can channel the energy of his Ghost Rays into specific parts of his body to empower them greatly, allowing him to strike exponentially harder or use his hands/feet as blades to cleave through his target. Has been shown to be capable of easily piercing/slicing through steel)

Ecto-Energy Constructs (can form nearly anything he can think of by channeling his ghost ray energy into solid forms. Has been shown to form rings, discs, and shields which can either reflect or nullify energy attacks depending on what Danny wants)

Power Absorption (Can absorb powers and energy through his ghost shield, allowing him to use his enemy's abilities for a time, or to channel the energy of their attack into his own abilities)

Electrokinesis (can generate and manipulate electricity, as shown when he used it to charge the Fenton Thermos, and a few other times throughout the series. Often used as a Ghost Stinger)

Thermokinesis (Can generate exceedingly high temperatures, making anything he is touching as hot as he wishes)

Cryokinesis (Can generate exceedingly low temperatures, and generate ice at will. He can fire blasts of ice or solid ice constructs at will)

Pyrokinesis (Can generate ghostly fire to use as projectiles)

Aerokinesis (When split into two versions of himself, one was able to generate wind to cause his cape and hair to constantly flow as if there was wind even when in environments completely lacking in it)

Temperature Resistance (Due to thermokinesis and cryokinesis, Danny is EXTREMELY resistant, or even immune, to exeedingly high AND low temperatures. For fairness we will assume immune, as the vacuum of space had no impact on him at all)

Photokinesis (Can generate light from his hands at will)

Ghostly Wail (an incredibly powerful sonic wail capable of demolishing buildings, destroy many ghosts at once, and has a wide range while covering great distance)

Telekinesis (Can manipulate ecto-energy at a distance, allowing him to move objects with it. By extension, he is able to turn them invisible, intangible, or even restore them to pristine condition at will by channeling his powers into the energy surrounding the object or person)

Time Travel (through the use of the in-fi map and/or the time medallion, Danny is capable of traveling to any point in time he wishes and to any place he desires)

Overshadowing (Can take control of another person's body, manipulating them from within. Won't work without perfect concentration, or against those with strong wills)

Duplication (Can create copies of himself. His copies retain all of his powers and abilities, INCLUDING Duplication. However, if they collide together hard enough they do automatically fuse back together)

Spectral Body Manipulation (Can manipulate his body in all manner of ways, from stretching, growing and shrinking, bending and twisting beyond physical limitations, and creating holes in his body to allow projectiles to pass through, all the way to completely severing parts of his body from each other and reconnecting them at will)

Void Generation (Can draw all light into himself, leaving a room in complete and total darkness. He is able to see in this darkness with no difficulty)

Self-sustenance (Can survive indefinitely in environments with no source of food, water, or oxygen, by utilizing his ghost form. Ghost form Danny does not require food, water, or oxygen)

Rapid Learner (Has been shown to learn new abilities quickly after seeing them done, even without training, such as using the ghost shield mere hours after seeing Vlad do it for the first time, or obtaining the Ghostly Wail power ten years earlier than Dark Danny simply due to seeing Dark Danny perform it)

Indomitable Will (Immune to weaker forms of control, resistant to more powerful forms)

Skilled Tactician (able to quickly assess a situation and, in the heat of battle, plan out the most effective way to handle it)

Experienced combatant (has been facing near-indestructible enemies since he was 14, on a near-daily basis, as well as enemies as powerful or more powerful than himself. For this we'll assume it takes place just after the end of the series, giving him 2 years of experience, with an average of 2 battles per day [assuming most are smaller, weaker ghosts] to be safe given the frequency of the portals acting up)

Skilled marksman (landed a shot on medusa with his eyes closed, and has incredible precision with his ghost rays)

Emotional Empowerment (His powers are influenced, or even generated by, his emotions as shown when his ghost rays fired of their own accord out of fear at Desiree and when he manifested the Ghostly Wail for the first time in a fit of rage. His existing powers gain strength from potent emotion, and at times entirely new powers come into being due to strong emotion as well)

Technomancy (has been shown to be capable of Overshadowing technology and insert himself into it, either controlling it or becoming part of it at will)

And Danny's weaknesses:

All anti-ghost tech (in ghost form, these work exactly as intended on him, in human form they may detect him as a ghost but have very limited or even no effect on him)

Blood Blossoms (red flowers with innate anti-supernatural properties. They cause him extreme agony and leave him devoid of all ghostly powers)

Ecto-ranium (rare element with anti-ghost properties. Ghosts making contact with it feel extreme pain, and it is assumed colliding with it hard enough would destroy them)

Goku

Goku's powerset includes:

Energy Manipulation

Transformative Power Increase

Energy Sense

Super strength (on a cosmic scale)

Super speed (faster than light)

Super regeneration (healed from an energy blast to the heart in seconds due to transformation)

Hyper-acute senses (sight and smell honed to peak levels)

Hyperperception (can perceive and think at the same speed his body can move at

Zenkai Boost (exponential power increase on near-death survival)

Divine State (Mastered Ultra Instinct makes him near-impossible to hit)

Unbreakable Will (immune to all forms of psychic manipulation)

Mental Image Training (able to visualize and telekinetically connect with others for mental training, allowing him a mindscape in which to act)

Skilled Tactician (able to quickly assess a situation and, in the heat of battle, plan out the most effective way to handle it)

Experienced Combatant (Has been training and fighting consistently for decades, with his body being 39-40, and his mind being ~43 due to time spent dead. He trains near-constantly, and has decades of battle experience to draw on, including from time spent dead)

Skilled Marksman (has incredible precision with his energy attacks and melee strikes, even as accurate as to strike specific pressure points in the heat of battle)

Master martial artist (has trained with several masters in various fighting styles and techniques, leaving him with a wealth of methods to draw on)

Emotional empowerment (his strength, ki, and tenacity increase exponentially with emotion, granting him massive power increases in times of great emotion)

Ki Armor (Can use his ki like a protective layer around him, preventing attacks that would normally harm or kill him from making so much as a scuff mark)

And Goku's weaknesses include:

Limited Energy (can sustain Super Saiyan 1 and 2 indefinitely, but 3 and onward have increasingly heavy limitations to match their increasing level of power)

Cannot survive a vacuum

Vulnerable to exceedingly high/low temperatures (can survive contact with lava, but still retains an upper limit to how hot or cold he can handle)

To make this fair we'll put Danny at his absolute peak, and account for Goku being at HIS absolute peak (his strongest form, Mastered Ultra Instinct)

Goku loves to build up to the big moment, so we KNOW he would start in base. He would...pretty quickly realize Danny doesn't quite know how to "start small". Danny has never known a fight against a powerful opponent that WASN'T for his life. Er...lack of life? ....Half-life? Half-life 2: Fenton Boogaloo? He would be fighting for his life on instinct. Goku's base form is very powerful, but in Super it's mentioned by Beerus during the Battle of Gods arc that base form Goku STILL isn't strong enough to have killed Freeza. By the Moro arc this may have changed, so we'll assume base-form Goku is at least on-par with 100% Power Freeza.

Danny may not be as fast (which is going to be the real difficulty in fighting Goku) but he has something else going for him: he can fight at max power for HOURS without feeling the effects. By comparison, Goku can fight for hours in base form, Super Saiyan, and Super Saiyan 2. However, Super Saiyan 3 has a noticeable energy drain, and limits him to several minutes. This may have changed by the end of the Moro arc, so we'll assume SSJ3 can be used consistently for an hour before he's too weak to use it. Super Saiyan God is even more limited, with mere minutes before it's drained. Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (also known as Super Saiyan Blue) is further limited, and finally Mastered Ultra Instinct is more limited than that.

But despite all of Goku's powers and abilities, Danny has one simple set of powers that may win him the fight with ease. Goku is not used to fighting an opponent that can phase through his entire arsenal of attacks, and through him as well. Danny may be slower, but if Goku comes in close for a melee fight, Danny has a simple trick to win. Intangibility, invisibility. Turn invisible either partially (his arm+hand) or entirely (his whole body) and phase into Goku, pulling his organs with him as he phases out. Danny would, in character, never do something so brutal but it's not exactly in-character for these two to fight each other either, is it? Character personality has no place here. Only raw combat comparison. Goku does have ki sense, so invisibility may not be a true trump card, but he would only know where Danny is, not his exact movements. And assuming it became a battle of range, Danny's ecto-shield makes the fight entirely pointless, either redirecting, nullifying, or outright absorbing Goku's attacks. Ultimately, Danny has more endurance, greater durability, and his powerset makes him a major threat to all purely biological lifeforms thanks to his ability to simply fly through them and remove organs as he pleases. Goku does not have an answer (that I'm aware of) for an opponent like Danny. BY ALL MEANS CORRECT ME, THIS IS MY THOUGHTS AND I AM ABSOLUTELY DOWN FOR DISCUSSION! Change my mind, I want you to!

Conclusion: Goku can't defeat an opponent he can't touch, and he has no way of stopping Danny from using intangibility to remove critical organs. Even with transformations offering higher durability and faster healing, nothing will save him from the loss of his lungs. Danny, on the other hand, can survive being turned into a puddle, being bisected, punctured, and many other "fatal" injuries due to his ectobiology. It would either be a very short-lived fight with Danny holding Goku's lungs/heart in his hands, or a very long drawn out battle with Danny winning on endurance.

Ben 10

We'll assume Ben is unlimited in his access to the functions of the Omnitrix.

Ben 10's powers and abilities

Alien Forms (countless forms specialized for a wide variety of environments and situations)

Omnitrix Failsafe (instantly turns him into the alien most perfectly suited for surviving his current situation if he is dealt a fatal blow or in danger of dying)

Instantaneous transformation (his transformations happen instantaneously, and do not take time to occur)

Brilliant Tactician (Can assess a situation and form a plan to deal with it effectively and easily)

Universal Destruction (When the Failsafe fails, in the event of Ben's death the watch is set to self-destruct in an explosive manner powerful enough to destroy the universe)

Mental link to the Omnitrix (Can swap to/between alien forms with a thought)

Genetic scan (Can scan the biology of any living species and generate the peak physical example of that species, adding it to the arsenal of beings the watch can access)

Genetic Perfecting (Can simulate millions of years of the harshest conditions to turn a sample of a species into the most combative apex evolutions of themselves, creating more powerful versions of the samples already in the watch)

Innate Understanding (the watch grants ben full knowledge of every ability his new form is able to use, and how to use it, upon transformation)

Indomitable will (willing to die for his universe, unbreakable sense of self, mind is unwaveringly strong)

Ben's Weaknesses

Human reaction time (until he transforms, he is limited to human thought speed and human reflexes)

Watch cannot simulate time or experience (he is limited to the experience he has with a form, and will only be able to use abilities an "adult" specimen would be able to use, so species with abilities that come in old age will be unavailable)

This one is tricky. Are Ghosts a species, or a state of being? Is Danny a genetic hybrid, or a being between life and death? We'll look to the canon of the show for that answer: Ghosts are a species AND a state of being. Some ghosts (Desiree, Poindexter, and Ember as examples) were once human and, upon death, became spirits in the Ghost Zone with powers reflecting aspects of their human lives. Meanwhile, other ghosts (such as Clockwork, Undergrowth, and Nocturn) were never human and are extra-dimensional beings that have never existed as humans. Danny is unique: He is both Ghost AND Human. There are fan jokes that he's a corpse possessed by his own ghost, but the canon of the show states that he is a human whose DNA has been combined with ectoplasm, resulting in a Halfa. It's also been stated by the creators that Halfas are so rare because not everyone exposed the way Danny and Vlad were can become Halfas: most simply die. Danny and Vlad's DNA simply mixed perfectly with the ecto-energy. Now with that established, we come to this conclusion: the omnitrix CAN scan Danny, and it CAN add "Halfa" to it's arsenal. It would NOT be able to add Ghost to the list because Danny is, biologically, NOT a ghost. Regardless of which form it scans him in, it would get Halfa DNA because Halfa DNA is different from Ghost DNA.

However, Ben would NOT have a large list of powers to draw on. As most Ghosts have varying powers, Ben's Halfa form would have the typical ones (intangibility,spectral body manipulation, flight, invisibility, telekinesis, ghost rays, etc) but there's one fact to consider: the omnitrix cannot simulate experience, and Danny has more of it.

Halfas gain new powers, and their current powers grow in strength, with EXPERIENCE, not age. The omnitrix cannot simulate that. It could create an Ultimate Halfa (which may have more powers and much stronger base powers) but it would not give it the powers that only come with experience. He would not have the Ghostly Wail, the Technomancy, the Duplication, or any of the other powers that are born from experience and powerful emotion. The watch can't give those by default: only experience and circumstance can. And we've seen Danny manipulate other intangible things, meaning even intangible, Ben would not be safe from Danny's physical attacks. Now for the fight...

The failsafe is instant, which means if Danny tried the trick he used to beat Goku (intangible, grab lungs, pull, profit), Ben would simply be transformed into an alien that either heals fast enough to survive it OR he would be transformed into a species that does not adhere to typical biology (Ghostfreak, Alien X, Upgrade, etc) So Danny couldn't simply kill Ben, it wouldn't be that easy. Even if it were, Alien X makes it effectively impossible. This, my friends, is where Danny's Technomancy comes in. No matter what form Ben is in, no matter if he scans Danny or not, the omnitrix is ever-present as a mechanical device on his person. Danny can Overshadow people AND technology, and while Ben may be immune to Overshadowing due to his unbendable will, the omnitrix is not. Danny, upon Overshadowing the omnitrix (again, regardless of Bens' current form) could unbond it from Ben, leaving him entirely human and completely vulnerable. And given none of Ben's forms have the ability to see true invisibility like Danny's (save for those with infrared vision) he would never even know Danny was up to anything until it already happened. At that point it's as simple a matter as the Goku trick, or even simpler, a ghost ray to Ben's head or chest, carrying him high and dropping him, the Ghostly Wail, or any other of Danny's countless ways of killing regular humans.

Conclusion: Ben has a few ways of stopping Danny (Alien X, Ghostfreak, some of his energy-manipulators, etc) but none of them mean anything if Danny Overshadows the Omnitrix and unbonds it from Ben. A very simple trick, one Danny is more than capable of, and one Ben would not have time to react to unless he was in one of his faster-thinking forms such as XLR8 or Greymatter. Once removing the watch is done, Danny wins as easily as he would against any regular human.

Sun Wukong

Ooookay, this one is a DIFFICULT fight. I'm using classic Wukong, not westernized Wukong. Classic Wukong is...terrifying. Let's go over his powers and abilities. I'm using his most powerful version BEFORE his attainment of buddha-hood due to the fact that obtaining buddha-hood makes one completely and entirely above all things, leaving one truly invincible, invulnerable, indestructible, and incapable of anything in between.

Taoist immortal (age has no bearing on him, even should his body decay and become old, he will never become frail or weak due to age)

72 Transformations (can shapeshift into various forms as the situation demands, anything from a tiny golden cicada all the way to a massive and powerful elephant, and everything in-between such as tigers, rhinos, and more. For each transformation mastered, one gains an additional life, meaning should Wukong die through some method, he will be born again until his 72 lives are gone)

Superhuman agility (martial arts training coupled with his monkey instincts leave him with a level of agility impossible for humans)

Cloning (can create perfect clones of himself from the hairs on his body. Each clone is equally as powerful as the original, and can in turn create clones of themselves. Each clone holds the full powerset of the original, and can be dispelled by the original at will)

Universe-level strength (the Dragon Gods, the ones responsible for creating the universe and capable of creating infinite realms, were afraid of his raw strength)

Cosmic speed (Traveled from one end of the universe to the other with a single leap in mere seconds)

Universe-level durability (able to endure strikes from the Dragon Gods themselves)

Infinite Stamina (never tires, never feels fatigue or exhaustion)

Super-intelligent (mastered virtually every martial art, trained by the supreme Taoist sage for 20 years, learning and mastering techniques and lessons that take most hundreds or thousands of years in a mere 2 decades)

Spiritual Immortality (erased his name from the Book of the Living and Dead to ensure he could not die)

Limb multiplication (can create additional limbs at will, up to at least 1,000)

Body Freezing Spell (Can cause lower-ranking demons, humans, and monsters to freeze in place with a gesture and a single word)

Water Avoidance Charm (Can survive in deep water without breathing, but prevents flight)

Fire Avoidance Charm (can survive in any flame, no matter how hot or intense it may be)

Protective Circle (can create a magical ward of protection. Any inside the circle are protected from ALL harm)

Fiery Golden Eyes (Can see over 300 miles during the day, and almost 200 at night, as well as being able to see through any and all illusion, disguise, or transformation)

Riyu Jingu Bang Mastery (ornate gold and red quarterstaff that can extend or shrink as much as the user wishes. It weighs roughly 17,500 pounds regardless of form. When creating clones, the Riyu Jingu Bang also multiplies so each clone bears one of their own)

Cloud-walking boots (allow him to walk on clouds, integral in his use of the Cloud Somersault which allows him to cover great distances in the blink of an eye)

And his weaknesses....

Complete Goofball (incapable of taking a fight seriously. Even in his darkest moments, Sun Wukong has never given his opponent the benefit of a serious battle. He may not always joke, he may not always smile, but he NEVER takes a fight seriously and will use every opportunity to play with his enemy. Whether as a method of distraction, an attempt to make them drop their guard, or simply out of a love of fun, he never takes a fight seriously)

That's it, that's the list.

So here's the thing...Danny CAN'T kill Sun Wukong. His name is removed from the Book of the Living and Dead. He's got 72 rebirths. He's biologically immortal. His durability, strength, and power are unmatched by any being in all of fiction or reality, except for the Buddha. But what Danny CAN do is defeat him. How? Well, it's not easy, but this is how I think he'd do it.

Wukong loves to play. Danny is pretty quick on the catch so it wouldn't take him long to figure that out, and given his own love of not taking people seriously, the two would have a pretty even match as far as jokes and japes go. And Sun Wukong HATES to lose. All Danny has to do to defeat Sun Wukong is play on his hatred of losing and his refusal to take anything seriously. Danny leads Sun Wukong to the nearest portal to the Ghost Zone and tricks him into going into it with him (VERY easy for Sun Wukong to be tricked through deception, he's a fast learner but he's not that wise). Sun Wukong, now in the Ghost Zone, is limited to only being able to get out through one of the portals. Danny simply tricks Sun Wukong into staying for a moment (Sun loves games, Danny could suggest a race to the end of the Ghost Zone and ask for a ten second head start "to make it fair, since [Sun] is so much faster...Unless [Sun] is afraid he'll lose." Sun's competitive nature would rise, he would agree to the head start, Danny would have plenty of time to leave through the portal they came in from and use the Fenton Thermos to close it (Reverse Polarity seals and closes portals after all) behind him, thereby trapping Sun Wukong in the Ghost Zone forever. Sun wouldn't know how to navigate the Zone, and his magic and equipment will do nothing to help him escape. He would be stuck until he could find another portal, and he would only start looking AFTER winning/losing the race, because he would spend the entire time trying to "catch up" to Danny. Eventually he may get bored or give up, but he still wouldn't even know what he was looking for as far as getting out of the GZ. Conclusion: While Danny can't KILL Sun Wukong, he could still defeat him through deception and clever use of the Ghost Zone. Given Danny's strategic mind and the fact he's been fighting "unbeatable" threats for years, it's no stretch to believe he would figure out pretty quickly he needs to trap Wukong rather than try and beat him in a fight.

Conclusions

I do truly believe Danny Phantom wins against almost any opponent, and the big three badasses of fiction are no exception. That said, if you see an issue in my logic or can think of a reason he wouldn't be able to beat them, PLEASE let me know. I love discussion and if you change my mind I'll be all the happier for it. Again, I know this isn't my usual content, but I needed to get this out of my system cause I'm rewatching the show and it's got me kinda hyperfixated, ha.

Anyway, later guys! New Relan post coming soon, next one is about the countries!

#danny phantom #dannyphantom #sun wukong #sun goku #ben 10 #ben tennyson #goku #wukong #the monkey king #dragon ball super #dbz #dragon ball #ben ten #ghost #halfa

14 notes · View notes